Venezuela will remain under US control following the arrest of Nicolás Maduro. That was Donald Trump’s message during a press conference held at his Mar-a-Lago compound after US forces launched an offensive against various military targets in Venezuelan early Saturday morning. The operation culminated in Maduro’s capture.
In the briefing, Trump stressed that his administration will not allow someone “that does not have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind” to take control of the country. “We have had decades of that. We are not going to let that happen,” he said. “We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.”
Trump explained that the leadership of Venezuela will be in the hands of high-ranking US officials, including secretary of state Marco Rubio and secretary of defense Pete Hegseth.
At the same time, María Corina Machado, considered the main leader of the opposition to Maduro and Hugo Chávez and recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, issued a statement in which she stated that opposition party figure Edmundo González Urrutia must immediately assume the presidency of the country.
“This is the time of the citizens. Of those of us who risked everything for democracy on July 28 [2024, the date of the last Venezuelan presidential election]. Of those of us who elected Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate president of Venezuela, who must immediately assume his constitutional mandate and be recognized as Commander in Chief of the National Armed Forces by all the officers and soldiers who are part of it. Today we are prepared to enforce our mandate and take power,” the statement says.
The text was republished by Gonzalez Urrutia himself, who made a direct appeal to the Venezuelan population: “Venezuelans, these are decisive hours. Know that we are ready for the great operation of reconstruction of our nation.”
Trump appears to have other ideas. At Saturday’s press conference, he indicated that his administration has plans to rebuild the Venezuelan oil infrastructure and recover the oil that, according to the president, was “stolen” from the United States several decades ago.
“Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets, and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars,” Trump claimed. “We are going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure … and start making money for the country.”
